Tesco’s food donation scheme provides almost 30k meals in Carrickfergus

A supermarket’s surplus food donation scheme for charity has provided almost 30,000 meals over a four-year period in Carrickfergus.
The food donation scheme will be showcased at the Minorca Place store.The food donation scheme will be showcased at the Minorca Place store.
The food donation scheme will be showcased at the Minorca Place store.

Tesco Extra at Minorca Place is joining hundreds of others across the UK this Saturday (June 1) to showcase the Community Food Connection, which is run in conjunction with leading food charity FareShare.

The Carrickfergus Castle Extra team will be talking to customers about how the scheme works to provide free surplus food and inviting local charities and community groups who already receive food from the initiative to encourage even more to sign up.

The Community Food Connection scheme ensures that each of the retailer’s stores in the UK is able to donate surplus food at the end of the day to charities and community groups. It uses an innovative app developed by social enterprise FoodCloud, to notify groups each night about the food available for collection.

Today, more than 7,000 groups are able to pick up free food from their Tesco outlet. Since the scheme began, the company has donated more than 36 million meals to those groups, with more than a million meals a month now being donated. The Carrickfergus Castle Extra has donated 28,912 meals to date.

Alec Brown, head of Community at Tesco, said: “At Tesco we firmly believe that no good food should go to waste that is why we set up our Community Food Connection scheme, which ensures that our surplus food is put to good use in the local community.

“This weekend we are celebrating four years of the scheme with our colleagues and customers and we hope this will encourage more groups to sign up so that even more surplus food benefits local groups.”

Lindsay Boswell, FareShare chief executive, said: “We are proud to have been able to work with Tesco over the past four years to create this pioneering scheme, which is the biggest of its kind in the UK.”

To find out more details about Community Food Connection and how local groups can benefit please visit the Carrickfergus store on Saturday, June 1 or visit www.tesco.com/community-food-connection